why is it so difficult to find a good school

[poppytin]

Why are almost schools with good academic performance are either independent, grammar, or faith schools? What would you do if you have an academically bright child but lived in an area without independent nor grammar and would not like your child to attend faith schools? Since most schools have adopted academy status, shouldn't they remove catchment criteria and serve as many good pupils as possible?

Definition of a sink school :
One that NOBODY who gives a stuff sends their kids to.
One that has an intake allowance of 200 but gets under 70 applicants per year
One that has had millions invested in it after it was named 18th worst in the country. Then got closed and merged into a sponsored academy.
The academy is getting a shiny new £16 million building for 900 pupils even though by the time they move in September there will be less than 300 on roll.
One that suppresses house values in its catchment by 33%

How do I know?
Easy.
I drive past it every day delivering my kids to their school in a convoy with all the other parents who care.

PS its an evangelical faith school.

How many like that are there?

every LEA has at least one
they do not take long to spot on the BBC league tables

my local one is particularly bad I admit

I sent my DD to a school that went into Special Measures when she was in year 8. It had the lowest GCSE pass rate in the LEA, had a high percentage of EAL kids, served a poverty stricken council estate and would doubtless have made certain MNers reach for the smelling salts and patronise me horribly for not knowing any better suggest I had ruined my DD's life forever.

She got 12 A's.

I suggest having a look at Value Added scores before you pick up your petticoats and tiptoe around the 'sink' schools.

balia
I do not regard special measures as being a category for sink schools
they are a short term thing.

sink schools have consistent and persistent failings over years and years and years
my local one has had CVA under 980 for 5 years running from before it was closed and converted to an academy to date.
According to the DFES site, the average GCSE grade for their high achievers is a C+
chances of ANY child getting 12 As there is zilch.

I'd love to know how turning a 'failed' school into an academy makes the problems disappear. The intake doesn't change.

Ah. So academy status allows for certain measures to be imposed rather than just putting a new head in place at the existing school. What happens if a new head of an academy is ineffectual? Can academies fail or is more money just pumped in?

Lee
No academy has failed - yet
but my local and its twin near where poster Cory lives have come darned close.
Bear in mind that older (Labour) sponsored academies are in their own little world.
The newer conversions still have strong links with the LEA.
If an academy is failed by Ofsted, there is no LEA parachute any more. If the SMT refuse to act then the school just stays dire until Whitehall directly intervene (so much for localism)

Schools
The school to which I refer is run by an evangelical trust that has several academies. They have NO clear strategy to make the place work better.

Thanks

Currently most of the new conversions were outstanding so there is no reason why they should fail so quickly, especially as many have hardly seen a SIP for years as the money was diverted by LEA to other schools. Hence the reason why the figures work out to be so much better than conversion is attractive.

However, changes in senior leadership or some other major event could - indeed - change that as time goes on. Then the SOS will have to sort something. Academies still fall under Ofsted so probably special measures or notices to improve will lead to them returning regularly and the Academy required to spend some of the LACSEG it gets on buying in a SIP.

seeker I'm sure you appreciate that the Diabolo Academy (and schools like it, such as Saint Equilibristica's) does so well because its strong, Franconian ethos underpins everything it does.

And the teachers are, to a clown man, expert plate spinners.

The jury is out on the merits of the school down the road but if you're happy to take chances with your child's education, then so be it. I guess some of us have different priorities.

Mossbourne isn't actually an example of failing school becoming an academy, although press articles have implied that it was. It was a brand new school that opened with just a first cohort of 11 year olds and filled up gradually for the next 5 years.

It is hard to see how an existing problem school will solve its problems by becoming an academy.

Change of name won't change anything but I think the failing ones do have new leadership parachuted in - that's what might turn them around.

If they get shed loads of cash that could help too. Money isn't everything in education but while teachers need paying and resources and equipment doesnt come free, more money doesn't half help the staff pupil ratio and holding the curriculum together, allowing the leadership to lead. Again, not a magic potion, but it could well help immensely.

Spending in schools:

Sink school - average teacher salary = £40,800 pupil teacher ratio = 13.8

Excellent comp - av salary = £37,200 pupil teacher ration = 17.3

BECAUSE the SMT of one school are clued up and the other are not ....

I do think that the Head/SMT is the most important factor.
12 Years ago dcs school were getting just 13% with 5 A_C gcses, this was not even the figure including maths and english. Now it gets 90% 5 A-C and 60% including maths and english.
This was all down to a change of Head. The school is now rated Outstanding and has just changed to an academy last year.
The school has an excellent pastoral care system as well.

There are some very poorly performing (or at least, poor results reporting) faith schools too
our local faith school failed it's Ofsted a few years back and most of the children that go there are imported in from Enfield. They have just moved to a brand new shiny building and are starting to get better results, but the school has failed many children in the last 7 or 8 years.

There are some very poorly performing (or at least, poor results reporting) faith schools too

yes - if I look down the list for our county, there's a few faith schools near the top (benefitting from their ability to select, and in 'nice' areas) and then it seems a pretty random scattering. People defend faith schools because they supposedly do well because of their 'ethos' but the stats don't really seem to bear this out. I'm sure there are some which do an excellent job with a poor intake but the same applies to non-dom schools.

One point that I don't think has been made, OP - there's a world of difference between not being one of '100 top schools' and being a bad school!

The top 100 schools are almost bound to be selective either overtly (grammars) or covertly (faith schools). That doesn't mean that there aren't schools that get excellent academic results but aren't top 100 material.

Certainly here dd has the choice of two schools (both of which she can reasonably expect to get into). One has unquestionably excellent academic results, the other, which she'll probably choose, less good results but still absolutely fine if you look at the intake (higher levels of FSM etc).

Obviously there are big problems in London and some other parts of the country, but an awful lot of the UK has perfectly acceptable schools which serve their local communities well.

It is also a big mistake judging schools by their A level results. Obviously, many schools only go up to 16. Of those who go up to 18, some schools have selective 6th forms - and in shedding some of their own pupils, have space for bright young people from other schools, while other 6th forms take just about everyone who would like to stay on. Also some of the schools on the list show great results, but the numbers achieving those results are actually tiny.

You are only looking at secondary schools that do A levels.
It?s a mistake to judge schools by their A level results.
Most secondary schools in Surrey don?t do A levels (have a 6th form / yrs 12 & 13). The children go on to do A levels in 6th form colleges.
As has been said before ? choosing a school is not always a straightforward process.
Good Luck

seeker did you not win your appeal ofr your DS to go to grammar school?

Did you Seeker?

We are appealing-but under the circumstances we have practically no chance of success.

On what grounds are you appealing?